Post I Can't Seem to Finish

I don't know all the different places/directions this post is going to go, but I'm sure it won't be organized. I've been working on this post for the past 2 weeks and just can't seem to finish it...


It's been a while since my last post. I don't have any good excuse for not writing besides not having time or just not feeling it. I do feel like I'm in a better place than I was a couple weeks ago. I'm still healing and grieving but I'm not consumed by loss and sadness anymore. I have moments that I'm really sad and let my mind wander, thinking of all the things I should be preparing for and worrying over. I still think of things that I was going to have to do before February when the baby came but then I catch myself and those thoughts are immediately replaced by emptiness and slight bitterness. I'm not angry at God and I have accepted my situation, but that doesn't mean that I don't still feel disappointed and frustrated. I've been in the middle of conversations with friends, talking about babies or the second child or future plans and I have to really think before I say things. I was in the mindset of having another baby in February for almost four months and its hard to just make my preset thoughts change overnight. I know I've had a month to adjust but things still hop into my head at any given moment. I'm still feeling the sting at times.


I've been thinking about timing of when to plan for another baby. It still really stresses me out. Although my last pregnancy was not 100% planned (it was 100% wanted) and caught us a bit by surprise, I was very content with the spacing God was giving us between children. Now, after I had decided that 21 months was going to be a wonderful age difference between Addison and Baby #2 and that it was exactly what I wanted, I have to accept that that is no longer in God's plan for our family. I still would like to have our kids close in age. That leads me to trying to decided weather I can handle the stress and worry that I know would come with being pregnant again right now or wait a little while. I also have the added stress of paying for the miscarriage and D&C (which from the Insurance explanation of benefits, looks like its going to be nearly as much as having Addison. lovely. It costs as much to have a tiny baby taken from you as it does to birth a healthy, full-term baby) and wondering how long that will take to pay that off before we'll have more hospital bills with the cost of having another baby... The financial aspect doesn't bother me as much as the emotional horrors that await me when I'm pregnant again (It will be a long, stressful, worrisome 40 weeks when it happens). Jordan is more caught up on the financial side. It's a lot to think about. I'm praying for guidance.


On to lighter things. (I really didn't mean for this to be a downer post. And I really do feel better overall but there is not a moment that goes by that I'm not thinking about it in some aspect.) So I think I might have caught the Pandora bug. No, I'm not getting sick. For those of you that don't know what Pandora is (first, go to website and browse) it is a brand of jewelry. What I am particularly interested in is the bracelets with beautiful, interchangeable beads. They can be quite expensive, if you buy them new from jewelry stores. That's why I am looking on Ebay! I'm not really all that concerned about having the "real" thing and I'm okay with the cheaper options that are available. I can see this turning into something that will be time consuming. I'll have my co-worker, Sonya to thank for that. :)

Addison has been such a mess! She has a huge personality and really is starting (or continuing, rather) to talk a lot. She calls me Momma and sometimes Mommy (although normally when I'm trying to get her to say Mommy, she say Yummy-she is a total food-oriented baby!). She calls Tripp "Bip" so we'll hear her saying "NO, NO, Bip!!" She's starting to say GranDee and Grandpa. She still says Dadda (occasionally Daddy), Nana, and Pawpaw (for my dad and Jordan's dad). She's also started to say Ellett ("Ay-Yett") and tells him to come on (Ellett is her 10 month old cousin that Gena keeps also. They are together 3 out of 5 days per week). It's really cute to hear her try to imitate what we say. We laugh at her and she just grins so big and is so proud of herself. One of my favorite parts of the day is when I'm driving Addison home after picking her up in the evenings. We talk and sing and make faces at each other in the car (in the mirror-don't worry, I'm a very careful driver). I just love seeing that little face crinkle into a grin and hearing that adorable little voice sing along with the songs I'm singing, especially after I've been away from her at work all day. We enjoy going on walks in the evenings with Daddy and "Bip". We have a great, shadowy area to walk near our house and try to take advantage of the slightly cooler weather right before the sun goes down. Addison just chills back in her stroller and takes everything in. I'm so glad that she likes to ride in her stroller.

We've been staying pretty busy and its been fun. I mentioned in an earlier post that we now have a car lot. That has taken lots of time, but its been fun because we both enjoy spending time with our business partners, Kirby and Dustin. Kirby works with Jordan and we've been friends with her and her family for several years now. They have two boys, Banyon-4 yrs and Sylas-2 yrs (They are 20 months apart. It was neat for me to see kids at almost the same age difference ours were going to be.) The boys and Addison play pretty good together. Addison and Sylas are almost exactly one year apart and they don't always know how and when to share things. Banyon is definitely the older sibling and likes to be in charge. They have had to play and keep each other occupied while we try to figure out all of the in's and out's of selling cars. We've already sold several, too quickly to keep anything on the lot. It's really exciting to be involved with the starting of a business, especially when it has a lot of potential to do well (we think it does, anyway!). Our official name is Pay Here Auto Sales. We chose that to highlight the fact that we will finance cars if you don't have the cash on hand to buy it. I won't bore you with all of the details, but it's definitely been a learning experience. There are a ton of papers that have to be filled out (and notarized) (and all done exactly the way the DMV wants it) and it was certainly intimating for the first sale. It's been fun so far!

I guess that's all I have in me right now. Hopefully I'll be back before next month (and with some more interesting happenings).

Big Sister

Yesterday Gena told me how much of a helper Addison is turning into. She likes to bring Ellett things when her Nana asks her to. It's really hard for me to see how good she is with Ellett and how loving she is with her baby dolls. All I can think about is how good of a big sister she would've made in just 5 months. I can also see that she gets jealous of Ellett, too. I know that she'll be a good big sister when the time comes, but I was so worried about how she would be at only 21 months as an older sibling. Now I can see her comprehending things, following directions and helping out when asked and I just wish that things had panned out differently and that our family was going to be spaced out as I had thought it was.

I still want to have our children be close in age. That leads me to having to deal with the question of when. When will we try again? I don't know the answer to that. I think that we aren't going to start trying right away. I feel like that would be stressful and that I need a break for a while from thinking about pregnancy related things. Not that I don't want to hear about other people's pregnancies or babies. I can deal with that and I don't want people to shy away from the topic because they don't want to hurt my broken heart more. Really, it's okay. I just don't want to think about myself being pregnant for a while. Several months at least. We'll just wait and see what God holds for our future.

I came across Addison's "big sister" shirt that I bought for her a few months ago. It's a long sleeved 2T and I keep thinking that she might not be able to wear it whenever the time comes. I'm thinking of getting a memory box to put all of the cards and pregnancy related things in. I keep thinking of different things that I want to put in a place to keep but get out of my sight for a while. I don't want to throw things away but I also don't want to be looking at them all the time. Things like my ultrasound pictures from my 8 week appointment, all the cards and messages people have given me, the miscarriage pamphlet from the hospital. Now Addison's Big Sister shirt may go in it too. I've been thinking of calling it my "heartbreak box." Too sad? I don't know... maybe I'll call it something else.

I feel like all I do is ramble and wallow in all my posts. I'm certainly not trying to have myself a great big pity party. This blog has just happened to become my outlet for getting some emotions out that I wouldn't necessarily express to anyone in person for fear of breaking down. If I get upset and start crying while typing a post then I can just stop and do something else, but a conversation with someone is a little different. I also have a hard time expressing how I feel when talking, so as I type, I get a chance to think about how to word things and how to get across what I'm really trying to. It's like my therapy right now. So just bear with me and I'm sure I'll get back to some happier thoughts soon (or maybe not too soon, but in time).

Lost

Lost...that's about how I'm feeling right now. I feel so alone and secluded at times even though I'm surrounded by people.

I went back to work yesterday. It went okay. I didn't break down and I made it through the whole day. I thought I was going to have to leave to go to the doctor when I started having some new side effects from my surgery that I was slightly alarmed by. (Reader's Beware: female symptoms about to be discussed). I had been cramping all day but during lunches it started getting really intense and quite painful. I stood up and realized that I'd started bleeding as well (which I was NOT prepared for and had to have one of my co-workers bring me a pair of pants to borrow. I felt like I was in middle school and having my period for the first time and not being prepared. I think a word like humiliated would suit the situation). Both of these are common after a D&C but I hadn't been having either one since the day after. I called the nurse from my OB/GYN doctor's office and she told me to monitor everything throughout the afternoon and over night. I was feeling better this morning but still experiencing some pain so I called back (as instructed). I was once again told to monitor and if it was still going on to come in to be seen by the doctor this afternoon.

So I went to work this morning. I was not feeling well but emotionally I was okay. I had a few moments where I just stared off into nothing but snapped out of it before the tears started flowing. This afternoon I called back to talk to the nurse and got an appointment to see Dr. Lipscomb. I knew it was going to be hard on me, emotionally, to go back to the last place that I experienced "normal"; the place that my world was shattered in front of my eyes. Trouble started as I checked in. The receptionist was trying to figure out if I needed to pay my co-payment or not then said "Oh. You're an OB patient aren't you?" (OB patient is what you are referred to as when you are pregnant and you see the Obstetrician. If you are at the woman doctor for other issues you are seeing the Gynecologist...even though they are both the same doctor. Make sense? yeah, not really to me either.) I didn't really answer because the only thing I could think of was that I should still be an OB patient and that I wish that I still had a healthy baby growing inside me instead of having to have a dead baby sucked out of me. Then she couldn't really figure it out so she asked me what I was being seen for. So I had to tell her that I was having some issues following a D&C from a miscarriage. I wasn't mad at her because she wasn't out of line in any way but it was hard for me to go through everything when I was already nervous and slightly testy/moody.

I sat in the waiting room and then was called back by a couple of women that I didn't recognize as being nurses. I felt a bit bombarded by the lab-techs that called me because as soon as I was near them one told me that I was having blood work done, then going for an ultrasound and then back to see the doctor, oh and that she liked my shirt. Then, while I'm still processing all of this brand new information, they are trying to have fast-paced small talk and chit-chat about my shirt with me. I couldn't keep up, not that I was interested or cared. I'm not even sure I could tell you what shirt I had on. I guess just being there and in some pain was overwhelming me and I was extra emotional. I was very out-of-it and I'm sure I was full of blank stares that some found rude.

The ultrasound was just as awkward and confusing for me. Not that I was confused at what was happening but that I kept missing what I was supposed to be doing. I walked into the room and was expecting to pull up my shirt to have have the gel on my belly. Don't know why that's what I expected...I should have know that it would have to be trans-vaginal. So I stood there waiting on the ultrasound tech to tell me to hop up onto the table while she stood there waiting for me to go strip down in the little bathroom. As i laid on the little bed, I kept thinking of the last ultrasound that I had and the devastating result of that. I closed my eyes and tried to drift off during most of it. Anyway not a good experience.

My doctor was super nice as always and very good about explaining things to me and didn't make me feel like I was an inconvenience or being stupidly cautious over nothing. He took my concerns seriously, hence the blood work and the ultrasound. Fortunately he didn't think that there was any kind of complication and the ultrasound showed that there wasn't anything remaining in my uterus that shouldn't be there from the pregnancy. In fact the phrase used was, "the content of my uterus is empty." Empty. That's right. I'm empty. I know what empty feels like, that's what my problem is. I'm obviously internalizing his words and I know that he meant that my uterus is empty of anything that might be harming me. Anyway, after his examination Dr. Lipscomb felt that I might be getting an infection as a result of the surgery. So I'm currently taking an antibiotic twice a day as well as a medication that will make my uterus contract itself back down to a normal size (it's apparently still enlarged from the pregnancy). I'll take this every 6 hours for 24 hours. It will cause more cramping and a need to take 4 ibuprofen every six hours as well. Lovely. I hate taking medicine, but it seems that I'll be taking it for the next week at least.

When I checked out, I went to the same lady that checked me in. She asked if I needed to schedule another appointment and I told her that I already have one scheduled. She wanted to check it in her computer, but then got confused. I had to explain to her that I originally had an ultrasound (18 week, gender-revealing) scheduled for next Thursday which was cancelled (for obvious reasons) and a new post-op appointment was already set up for Wednesday. She then saw everything clearly and verified the date and time of my follow-up. By this point, I was nearly in tears and just wanted leave. I pretty much cried the whole way home, feeling emotionally drained and on the verge of tears for most of the evening (all, of course, while dealing with intense cramping). I've calmed down a lot but, honestly, I could still cry right now.

So overall my day was awful. I'm nervous about my pain level with the medication that I'm taking. I really don't want to have to miss yet another day of work so I'm hoping to be strong and make it through. I'm praying for strength, physically, but mainly emotionally. Going back to work has not been easy, but it's gone smoothly for the most part.

I'm not questioning God with "why?" and I've accepted that I lost my baby. I know that I'm young and shouldn't have any trouble getting pregnant again when we want to. I know that everything will work out and that God will give me the strength to move past this. But that doesn't make what I'm feeling any easier. At moments I feel fine and like I'm making progress but it seems like that is always followed by what seems like set-backs and break-downs. I know its normal. The pragmatist in me knows all of this. But the emotional side of me can't really accept it or process it or deal with. I don't really know how to explain it. I'm sure if you've ever experienced anything similar you can understand what I'm trying to express. If you haven't, I pray that you don't ever understand what I'm saying.

Lost...but searching through the darkness for my Way.

Not much

I always say I don't have much to blog about and then end up with a really long post (normally full of nothing-ness) so we'll see on this one. The past few days have been really tough still. I'm trying to move on and get back into some type of normalcy but it's so hard to be normal when I don't feel that way at all.

I've had a few incidents with people (some I know, some I don't) that have caused me to be uncomfortable or weepy. While on a walk yesterday morning, Addison and I passed an older woman in our neighborhood (whom I'd never met) and started a conversation with me about Addison. We talked for just a minute then started to walk again and as we were walking away from one another she turned back and said "Know you are blessed to have a child." I looked and her and smiled and thanked her. Then I turned back around and sobbed my way back home. I kept thinking that the response that statement would be "yes ma'am, more than you know." I certainly didn't take any offense to her words, but it did make me very emotional.

I've managed to make it to Walmart and a few other places and although I wouldn't say the trips went well, they weren't too terribly traumatic. The first trip just completely overwhelmed me to be around so many familiar people even though I didn't really have to face any real conversations. As soon as we got home I basically ran into the bedroom, threw myself onto to bed and sobbed. It's strange, not that I do it but when, because I can't really tell you any specific thing that causes me to break down (I feel like I'm repeating myself from another post here).

Anyway, the second trip to Walmart was last night with my friend Kirby. We had to get some stuff for the office (our new car dealership that we're opening...oh I haven't mentioned that Jordan got his dealer's license, started a corporation in which I am one of the four officers and that we will have a used car dealership? In another time and post I'll get to that) and I was doing pretty good. I had a task and was (almost) staying focused on it. We got up to the checkout line and went to one of the cashiers that I know there (which doesn't say much because I know most of them). She's very sweet and always asks me about Addison. Well I was putting things in the cart and she started talking to me so I turned around to face her. Our conversation went like this:

Cashier: "I heard some good news..." smile.

me: Blank stare. Very confused. "What?"

Cashier: repeat, "I heard some good news. Congratulations!"

me: still blank stare and very confused look. "oh."

and I turned back to Addison (who thankfully was starting to fuss and cause I great way out of the conversation). I was in a small state of disbelief. I don't really remember if I said goodbye or anything else to her. I wasn't mad at her, but just so stunned. I didn't know until we got back into the car that the cashier had been trying to talk to me some more but I honestly didn't hear her. Kirby said that she kept trying to congratulate me again until Kirby had to fill her in with a whispered "She lost the baby." I'm very glad that I wasn't in that situation by myself because I don't know how I'd have handled it. I've been preparing myself to hear people ask me about how my pregnancy was going but not to hear congratulations. We've been telling people for 12 weeks that I was pregnant (since week 4) so I thought everyone already knew.

I still have not been sleeping. Well until last night, that is. All Doctors out there that might be reading this, you might need to skip this next part. I took one of Jordan's anxiety pills last night. And I slept great. But I think it made me stay a little extra sleepy and out of it this morning. I kept trying to get up and going but couldn't really wake up until about 11:45 so we didn't make it to church. I think Satan was causing me to have some extra anxiety about being around everyone. I know that sounds ridiculous since my church family is going to be one of the most supportive crowds I could be around, but I think it was the crowd part that was getting to me. I'll get there eventually. Hopefully soon.

My plan is to go back to work tomorrow. My bosses have been so great about making sure that I know I can take as much time as I need, but I feel like I should try to get back into a routine. I guess we'll see how tonight and tomorrow morning go. I hope that I'll be okay throughout the day, but I know until I try it.

And once again, I'd like to say yet another, huge "Thank you" to all of you for your love, support and prayers. I love you all!